


Clean up in aisle four

by strangequark



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Gen, Humour, M/M, supermarket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangequark/pseuds/strangequark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat hates his dead-end supermarket job, then his only tolerable coworker is replaced by a babbling moron. A Homestuck AU, based on a terrible RPF I wrote in eleventh grade.<br/>or, that one fic nepeta wrote about karkat and john.</p><p>:33</p><p>D---> This is most inappropriate</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean up in aisle four

       Karkat sat miserably at the kitchen table in his apartment, staring at his cheerios with an air of disaffected gloom.

       'I can't bear another day at my dead-end supermarket job, restocking soggy produce while surrounded by morons. I wish something interesting would happen,' he thought, "After lunch, I'm quitting.’

       He grabbed his unwashed sweatshirt and rushed out the door, a smirk forming on his face at the thought of telling his insufferable boss, Eridan, exactly how he felt about the job.

       Walking through the automatic door and tripping over a discarded handbasket, Karkat was surprised to discover the most tolerable of his coworkers, Sollux, was not at his usual station, chewing gum and dishing out scathing indifference to the customers along with fresh baked bread.

        "Where's Sollux?" he asked, wading his way through the swamp of empty doughnut boxes that was the break room while attempting to clock in.

       "He eloped to Alternia with that horrid man of his, you know, the one he met in the yogurt aisle." Eridan dished out this juicy gossip with a toss of his coif and a high pitched giggle.

        "You mean the only other person not on register this shift is the produce tiger?" Karkat's voice rose to a dangerously high level, " You know it makes me nervous when she fondles the grapefruit or jumps out from behind the refrigerator case holding that rusty cheese-grater and purring."

       "Don't be silly Karkat, of course I'm hiring a replacement. I put an ad on the internet."

       "Right, the internet. With any luck, we'll only get a homicidal artsy social recluse. Wait we already have one of those. Why do I work here again? Forget it. I'l just go restock the produce."

       "That's great Karkat," squealed Eridan,"I'm glad to see you have a positive attitude about this."

        "Where's my box cutter, I'll need it as protection from the hobo and those airheaded cashiers." muttered Karkat, picking his way back out through the boxes.

        Karkat stepped into the stock room and angrily ripped open a box of kiwis, taking out his anger by punting it into the corner.         "Ow!" yelled a muffled voice,"Don't you have any courtesy, any consideration for others? I was just checking to see if these grapefruit were bruised when all of a sudden this, this, this kiwi box flies out of nowhere and almost kills me!"




       "Boxes can't kill people, Nepeta, now get out to the freezer section where you're supposed to be working, I think one of the thermostats is broken." groused Karkat.

       "Okay!" squealed Nepeta, "I can check to see if my corpses.... I mean the TV dinners are defrosting."

       "I'm not even going to touch that one," muttered Karkat. He hefted another crate of kiwis onto dolly, put on his lucky green apron, and pushed out into the produce section.

        'Oh no,' he realized with dawning horror, 'the crazy nutrition mother is here.'

        Indeed, wading through the crowd, carrying a clipboard was a harried, neurotic woman.   "Don't you have any Brazilian Asparagus?" she whined, "Martha Stewart says they have the best amino acids of all the green vegetables."   Karkat groaned.

       'Since when was Martha Stewart an ectobiologist?' he thought, 'What does she clone, doilies?'

       "I'm sorry ma'am, we're out of stock."

        "Fine, I'll take my business elsewhere," she sniffed, "To a store that cares about my children's health."

       'Thank gog,' thought Karkat, as the woman stomped through the exit, knocking an elderly man into the display of coffee beans.

       *CLEANUP IN AISLE FOUR* called Eridan's voice over the PA system.  "NOOKSUCKER!" screamed Karkat, receiving dubious looks from the troll with facepaint who had been prodding the avocados.   Running to aisle four, Karkat was thrilled to find some pestilent little grub had strewn six boxes of Spongebob macaroni across the floor. To make matters worse, they had also spilled a gallon of grape juice.   'Better get the mop,' he thought, walking to the supply closet.

       After the scourge of purple stickiness had been fought, Karkat returned to the storeroom. He was enraged to discover a customer pawing through the mango boxes.

       "Excuse me sir," he proclaimed, "I'll have to ask you to leave the stockroom."

       "oh." The man straightened up, smiling stupidly revealing a day glo orange apron, and stretched out his hand.  "I'm John, the new employee, saw the ad on the internet," said the man in the apron.

      "Karkat," grunted Karkat, "Stay away from the mangoes, they're my jurisdiction."

       "I'm so glad to meet you, " said John, "Maybe you'd like to go bowling after work."

        'No!' thought Karkat, 'I'd much rather be alone.’   "Sorry,” he said “ I have to do my laundry."

       "Maybe another time," smiled John, hopping off to organize the canned food.

       'Hopefully that was all I'll need to do to discourage him. He's just so happy. Eww' thought Karkat, savagely opening the box of mangoes.

       The remainder of the morning passed mildly, although a mild altercation arose when Karkat refused to let Terezi, the preschool teacher, bring her students (on their grocery store field trip) behind the meat counter for a learning experience. It had taken him two days to clean the gristle out of the meat grinder the last time this had happened.

       Finally, it was lunchtime, and Karkat resolved to hand in his resignation to Eridan and escape the store once and for all.  A wicked smirk overtook his face.  He strode purposefully into the breakroom and halted, faced with a feline figure forcing her way into his personal space.

  

  1.         “Kaaaaaarkat,” warbled Nepeta ”I made brooooownies. Eridan says they’re delicious and wants to see you in his office.”          
  



       “Thank you Nepeta,” grunted Karkat, sidestepping her attempt to steal his box-cutter(a level 2 employee privilege).

       ‘Maybe I’m getting fired,’ though Karkat gleefully.   He stepped into Eridan’s office, horrified to see the strange, mango accosting man sitting in one of the chairs.

       “You!” Karkat screamed ”I told you to stay away from my produce!”

       “Wonderful, you two already met,” simpered Eridan, “Karkat, you’re in charge of John’s training. He’ll be taking over vegetables, excluding the seasonal broccoli display, and that way you’ll have more time to focus on the fruit.”

        “Forget this. I quit,” snarled Karkat.

       “You know your contract Karkat,” chirped Eridan,  “Employees cannot leave until a proper replacement is found. John is replacing Sollux, so you’ll have to wait until we hire more people.”

       “You win this time Eridan,” stated Karkat, stomping off angrily toward the door.

       “Wait up,” squeaked John, tailing Karkat to  the produce section.

      “There’s a flat of carrots I’ll opened,” said Karkat, ”They need to be arranged to make it look like we don’t have that many. If any customer asks you a question, come find me. I’ll be working on the mangoes.”

       John, whistling a cheery rendition of ‘How Do I Live’, happily began arranging the carrots.  Having finished those, he took the initiative and moved on to the broccoli.   Emerging from the stock room with the box of mangoes, Karkat let out an angry bellow.   “What the hell are you doing? I specifically told you to work on the carrots.”

       “They’re done,” proclaimed John, “This display looked a little lopsided so I was fixing it.”

       “Nobody touches the broccoli. Not even the customers. Go get another flat of carrots,” growled Karkat, looking dangerously close to strangling John with each word that escaped his rapidly reddening face.

       “But…”

        “Now.”

        “But… I don’t have a knife.”

       “Fine, here,” acquiesced Karkat, “If a crazy looking woman tells you she’ll return it to me, don’t listen.”

       “But she seemed so nice,” said John, his words trailing off as he realized that Karkat had left.

       Karkat angrily drove home, trying to figure out where his horrible day had gotten even worse.   ‘Stupid new guy being all nice and dumb . Stupid Eridan not letting me quit. Stupid repairmen not fixing my internet. Stupid global warming.’  Sitting at his kitchen table eating dinner, Karkat was sad. He remembered all the times in his childhood people hadn’t shared their vegetables with him and he began to cry.

       “I should have been nicer to John,” he wailed,” He just wanted to be friends. I’ll call him right now and see if he still want to go bowling.”

       There was no answer when he called the number in the phonebook so Karkat decided to go knock on the door. Strangely enough, John lived only one street over.

       “John?” asked the neighbor,” He went out with the girl from four sixteen, something about roses and copious amounts of alcohol.”

       Karkat looked out the window and saw John walking down the street with a girl.   ’No!’ he thought, feeling an irrational wave of jealousy rise up like an angry beast in his chest, ‘She probably took advantage of his emotional fragility and is making him buy her expensive things.’

       Plagued by thoughts of John’s exploitation, Karkat tossed and turned all night.

       In the morning, he went to work 2 hours early.   ‘If I finish John’s training, I’ll be free to solicit random customers to work here. Then I can finally leave,’ thought Karkat, walking toward the stockroom.

        “Karkaaaaat,” crooned Nepeta, “You’re early. Did you have insomnia again? Did you get food poisoning? Are you in love?”

        “Shut up Nepeta.”

  

  1.        Karkat stomped into the stockroom. There sat John, in a loud orange apron, scanning the UPC on a crate of basil.           
  



       “Morning Karkat,” beamed John.

        “Eridan wanted me to give you a box cutter,” stated Karkat,  “Apparently you’re trustworthy.”

       “Thank you, I will treasure it always,” babbled John, ”Perhaps you’d like to go bowling today? It’s kind of rainy, but that’s good weather for bowling. The humidity helps make the floor wax have less friction.”

      

 “Why don’t you go bowling with your matespirit,” snarled Karkat, ripping into a crate of snowpeas like an angry bear.        

       “Matespirit?” asked John, tilting his head so far that it seemed likely to roll off.

        “Don’t deny it, I saw you walking down the street with her, holding hands.”

        “Are you kidding me? That was my sister Jade.”

    “What about the roses and alcohol?”

        “I had to buy her new supplies for her botany experiments,” said John, bemused.

       “You keep telling yourself that,” said Karkat.

 

       Suddenly, the lights went out.

        “Stupid rain,” groused Karkat,” The backup power will take at least a quarter hour.”

        Karkat heard a wicked giggling and the scraping of rubber wheels on linoleum. A tremendous force hit his skull and he saw stars. Slumped woozily on the floor, he could hear John’s voice screaming, ”What are you doing? Oh dear. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to take Karkat’s box cutter.”

       Nepeta lept snarling at John, “Stay back! Finally, the seasonal broccoli display is mine for the taking and I’m not letting some second rate produce clerk screw it up!”

       “ Why don’t you put down the knife, and we can talk about it,” said John, pulling out his new boxcutter as Nepeta advanced towards him.

        “ohhh, I see,” Nepeta hissed, “Well I suppose we could come to some sort of compromise..”

       “ Compromise?” squealed John as he stumbled backward into a dolly.

       “Fool,” squawked Nepeta, dragging Karkat out of the room.   John raced after her, past the dairy section and behind the meat counter. She was dragging Karkat into the meat locker! John grabbed her ankle but tripped over a case of bacon and tumbled into the locker after Karkat. Nepeta hit her head on the door, slamming it shut and falling unconscious next to the counter.

       Karkat awoke to find himself in a blindingly white room. Sides of beef hung from the walls and the metal racks were stuffed with prepackaged grubloaf.

       “What the hell’s going on?” asked John.

        ‘Aww he’s so cute when he’s alarmed,’ thought Karkat, ‘Wait. What the hell was that?’   “Nepeta’s locked us in the meat freezer again. She’s pissed I wouldn’t give her the box cutter. It’s the third time this week” he stated, “We’ll just have to wait until Eridan notices we’re missing from the teambuilding activity.  Not that I want him to drag us out for pedicures.”

       “I don’t need a pedicure.” said John. There was a long pause.

       “You know,” mumbled John, “I’m pretty sure it’s not the box cutter she’s after,” 

       “Nobody knows,” said Karkat,” Now help me look for the emergency kit I put in here. “  There was an awkward pause.

       “Damn, it’s gone.”

       “I have a headache and my fingers are turning blue,” stated John, staring at his fingers which were, indeed, an alarming shade of indigo.

        “I’m sorry she took the kit, “ said Karkat, “We’ll have to huddle for warmth.”

       “Karkat?” said John, ”Here, take my hoodie. Don’t die.”

       Karkat turned slowly and without a word grabbed one sleeve of the hoodie.   Karkat looked so innocent and vulnerable with his pale complexion and frosted eyelashes that John leaned closer to make sure he was still alive.   Suddenly, Nepeta woke up and looked into the meat locker. She saw them sitting suspiciously close and opened the door.   She rushed in screaming, “Karkat, I’ll protect your virtue!”

        Nepeta picked up a frozen leg of lamb and began beating John over the head with it. Karkat ran for the phone and called the police.   Six legislacerators were needed to pull Nepeta off of John and he was in a coma.

       Karkat visited the hospital every day, consumed by the guilt of his causing John harm.   “John, I hope you wake up,” he whispered, sitting by the bed on the morning of the tenth day.

        “Sir, you should go home and get a change of clothes, you look exhausted,” said an orderly.

        “No,” protested Karkat, “He’ll be up soon, I know it.”   Just then, John woke up.

        “Karkat? Are you dead?” he asked.

        “ No John, but Nepeta almost killed you. I’m so sorry,” stammered Karkat.

        “That’s okay,” said John, “ My friend Vriska tries to kill me all the time.”

        “No, how can I make it up to you?” asked Karkat, looking remorseful in John’s still unwashed hoodie.

         “Forget it,” said John.

        “But I love you!” screamed Karkat.

        “Fine. Let’s go rearrange the broccoli, Nepeta made the store room a mess,” said John.

       And they did.


End file.
